David A. Bennett has served District 20 (Warwick, Cranston) since first being elected in November 2010. A psychiatric nurse, Representative Bennett has been very active on health care and addiction issues, serving as co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Commission to Study the Integration of Primary Care and Behavioral Health and sponsoring many bills related to health. In 2023, he led the charge on tackling the state's short staffing crisis by raising wages for group home and nursing home workers and incentivizing employers to hire full-time nurses rather than travel nurses. In recent years, he has successfully passed legislation enhancing the requirements that people with knowledge of mistreatment or neglect of elders report it to authorities, ensuring antitrust law compliance in hospital conversions, and creating an exemption in regulations about FDA-regulated substances so students can have and use sunscreen at school. As an avid outdoorsman, Representative Bennett has contributed greatly to the protection of the state's environment. In 2023, he sponsored a law banning Styrofoam at restaurants and has pushed legislation to limit plastic waste and litter. His work has also contributed to laws like the Act on Climate and the state's clean energy standard. In 2024 he sponsored a law to modernize the reporting of vehicle collisions with wildlife. He has been a strong and successful proponent for raising Rhode Island’s minimum wage. Representative Bennett was the architect of Rhode Island's law requiring automated external defibrillators at public places that hold 300 or more people. He has sponsored numerous successful initiatives aimed at addressing the opioid crisis, including the law requiring all high schools and middle schools to have an opioid antagonist kit (Narcan) to prevent overdose deaths, and several others aimed increasing oversight of prescription drugs, making opioid antagonists more readily available, and ensuring follow-up care for overdose patients. In 2022, he sponsored “Nero's Law," which was enacted to allow EMTs to provide emergency care and transportation to police dogs injured in the line of duty. A graduate of Toll Gate High School, the Community College of Rhode Island, and Rhode Island College, he is a member of the American Nurses Association, Rhode Island Nurses Association, the Sierra Club, the Rhode Island Motorcycle Association, and Apponaug Old Timers.
